The Tempest/Theories
*The Tempest is number C3 on the blast door map. C3 is proposed to be a weather station. The name fits. The map shows it located at the top of mountains, this fits also. Weather modification technology typical revolves around releasing large amounts of chemicals into the air. A large chemical manufacturing facility would not be surprising to find in a research station devoted to weather modification. It could easily be subverted to production of toxic agents. *The Tempest is a direct reference to the play written by Shakespeare. **This is proven by the enhanced version of **Prospero is Ben, the ship he ran aground is Flight 815, Caliban is Cerberus, the spirits are the apparitions we have seen, and the sorcery is actually the Island's special power or abilities. ***It may make more sense to suggest that Jacob is Prospero. In the play, Prospero is an immensely powerful sorcerer with control over his whole island, which would fit with Jacob's role as the apparent leader of the Others, and might also explain Jacob's apparent ability to heal people, make his cabin appear and disappear at random, and so on. The ship he "sinks" (in the play, the ship is never actually sunk, although all the characters believe at the time that it has split in two--make of this in relation to the plane crash what you will) is Flight 815 which, if you follow the Tempest's plot, he does with the intent to escape the Island (is this why he asked Locke to "help" him?). **Prospero is The Island and the ship he ran aground (literally) is the Black Rock. **Ariel is the whispers: in the Tempest, Ariel often speaks to other characters aside from Prospero, but they never see him (except for a scene where he appears disguised, as a harpy). The whispers would then somehow be connected to the Island's Prospero-figure, assuming there is one, as Ariel was a spirit under Prospero's control. * According to wikipedia 1 "TEMPEST is a codename referring to investigations and studies of compromising emanations (CE). Compromising emanations are defined as unintentional intelligence-bearing signals which, if intercepted and analyzed, disclose the information transmitted, received, handled, or otherwise processed by any information-processing equipment." Possbily indicating a meaning as to the name of the station and the intentions of it it, how they communicate secretly to the outside world. If Faraday takes it down they are able to locate the Island and analyze the information within it. * Did you realize that each time someone appears/disappears during the whispers there's a Tempest? **Could it be due to the specific water properties which help the electromagnetic signals to be transmitted? ***Not likely, actually water is a bad electromagnetic wave conductor ****Rain opens a space or time tunnel which allows some kind of people to appear in a different place or time. *****In many ghost stories, the presence of a ghost is usually accompanied by cold air. On the Island, ghosts are accompanied by rain. ******On a tropical island, it rains almost every day, frequently in torrents. *******Maybe the rain is caused by the supposed meteorological research station on the Island. ***Electromagnetic phenomena may cause the rain as a side effect * Possible that the Tempest gas doesn't reach the barracks, either by design or because of the sonic wall. **Charlotte seemed interested in making sure Miles was still in Locke's camp **Could also explain why during The Purge the gas was manually deployed against DHARMA. **Also, considering that we have seen the Monster disappear into the ground (i.e. when it appeared near Eko, or when it tried to pull Lock down) this would be the same transport of gaseous materials that were used in the purge and could be possibly used again. Thus, it would seem likely that these tunnels/passageways/transports would in some way control the Monster as well. * The Tempest has a lot of other rooms still not seen. * A computer named tmpst4 is located on the Tempest. ** The computer is a Macintosh Quadra 660av. The internal codename for Quadra 660av was Tempest. * The top of the images posted say o-butyl 3-diisopropyl minphenyl methylphopanelate and continues behind the warning light. This suggest some sort of aromatic organic compound (4 substitutions), however the image posted is too blurry to exactly pin point what 431CTP...ARGE gas contains. Many aromatic compounds are known carcinogens so this would be consistent of a toxic gas as it is described. * 'The gas' can be produced at The Tempest. Thionyl chloride is a substance used in production of G-series nerve agents. *Didn't it seem like Daniel didn't really press anything into the computer before it stopped? How do we know this wasn't one of the many mind games that may or may not be on the Island? ** The transcript of the commands on says that the valve was opened and then an alarm reset command was entered. The system reported everything was OK after this. *The Tempest logo is foreshadowing of a tsunami that will affect the Island, much like the deadly Indian Ocean tsunami that occurred on Dec. 26, 2004. *With the Tempest Station logo being a wave. And the purpose of the station is to release toxic gas to kill the people on the Island. The Tempest is used/has been used as a biblical "great flood." Where it wipes out all civilization on the Island when it has been decided that life is unfit and not living in the image they intended. This would be decided by the god-like leader/creator of the Island. But life would need to carry on and start anew. So, if we deduct that the Tempest is a "great flood" station, then we can assume that there is in fact an "Ark" Station as well. **possibly the "Temple" Ben has mentioned. **Very nice ideas here. This seems to be the place where the chemicals used to Purge DHARMA may have originated. Let us assume (dangerous to do on this show, but...) the island moved back to DHARMA times. Note Charolette and Daniele have rendered the gas inert. This suggests to me that if DHARMA is destined to be purged, Ben is going to need to come up with some other method (at least for this loop). I am confident he will find a new method, however, as the universe course corrects (wait, the island is part of the universe yeah?). *The the gas released from the tempest during the purge remained in trace amounts, or somehow led to the problems with pregnencies on the island **This would make sense given the women having troubles were all (as far as we know) others when juliet was brought to the island =Purpose= *Ben would have used the gas to kill the freighter people, shutting it down is going to give them a clear "shot" at invading the Island. ** Given the freighter people know about it, wouldn't they just equip them with gas masks. ***Indeed Charlotte, Miles and Daniel had gas masks with them - discovered by Jack and Kate - when they arrived on the Island. * The Tempest uses chemicals to create energy through either production of heat (similar to coal-burning power plants) or simply as a giant battery. These reactions tend to be of a violent nature, hence the name The Tempest. * The Tempest has more than one function - the gas is but one part of its operations. * The Tempest harnesses volcanic gases to produce energy. These same gases and their by-products are poisonous. *The Tempest Station is the "self destruct button" or "fail safe" of the Island. If anything "bad" were to happen, the Tempest would use the toxic gas to destroy all evidence/personnel on the Island to destroy all evidence and knowledge of the Island and it's purpose. *The Tempest could be a Chemical and biological weapons disposal facility, possibly due to the DHARMA Initiative trying to "Save the world"? ** DHARMA manufactured chemical gasses with the intention to kill or Purge the Hostiles. *The Tempest is Station 1 of 6. The other 5 stations in the series of 6 have been numbered (2=The Arrow, 3=The Swan, 4=The Flame, 5=The Pearl, 6=The Orchid). The only remaining research station on the main Island is the Tempest. =The Tempest in General= *Right, first off, I reckon the Tempest isn't Station 1 of 6, that's quite obviously the Staff. The Tempest is not that prominent in Lost, its just a station linked to one event on the Island that happened to cause the downfall of DHARMA. *Next, the Tempest is the Power Station on the Island. Its got a dual purpose - Power and Chemicals. The chemicals made are also dual purpose - they are fuel and they are toxic weapons. *Thirdly, Goodwin is the only person we know of who worked in the Tempest. If he was the only one here, he was in charge of the Island's power. So then he leaves to join Ana Lucia and Libby and that, who's in charge of the power (if my second theory is correct about the Tempest being the power station, obviously). There was someone else who knew about the plot with the chemicals and stuff. Juliet? She knew, but shes busy with the survivors at the same point as power is being used at the Barracks. So someone else. Some other Other. My idea: Harper. His wife. Who better for him to trust, although he didn't trust her, whatever, but still. Perfect. She took over when he left (: *Fourthly, the producers of Lost aren't just going to put a random station onto the show for ONE episode are they? That seem a bit pointless and ridiculous. Thus, I think it will play a role, maybe a SIGNIFICANT role, in Season Six.